


Bring Your Daughter To Work Day

by listerinezero



Series: Impulse Decisions [2]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Baby Mutants, Domestic, Established Relationship, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-25
Updated: 2014-02-25
Packaged: 2018-01-13 16:59:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1234126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/listerinezero/pseuds/listerinezero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles brings three year old Lorna to class with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bring Your Daughter To Work Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pocky_slash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash/gifts).



> A small gift to **pocky_slash** , who was looking for some established relationship cuteness. I hope this feeds your craving, at least a little bit!
> 
> This follows the fic Impulse Decisions, but I don't think it's necessary to have read that to enjoy this one.

Charles sat in the parking lot of the daycare and let the car idle while he wallowed in parental guilt.

“I don’t wanna go!” Lorna whined from the back seat, kicking her little feet against the car seat.

Charles looked at the clock on the dashboard. He had to made a decision. “I know you don’t, darling, but you’ll have fun in there, I promise.”

Lorna pouted. “Daddy doesn’t make me go.”

Charles groaned and put his forehead on the steering wheel. “No, Daddy doesn’t make you go, but Daddy’s in New York for work this week, and Nana Edie’s on vacation, and Aunt Raven is at work, and I don’t know any of your little friends’ parents well enough to ask them for a favor, and _this_ Daddy has to teach an Intro to Genetics survey course to a hundred and fifty undergrads in… thirty-six minutes.”

Lorna whined and frowned again. She really wasn’t even putting up much of a fight, honestly. She probably would have been fine to spend the day at the Little Ducklings Daycare of Brentwood, and was putting up a fuss largely because Charles was allowing it. He was the one who didn’t want to leave her in daycare while he went to work. The thought of leaving his little three year old baby girl with strangers made him feel like a deadbeat, and more importantly, he dreaded telling Erik that he couldn’t handle Lorna for a week without him.

Lorna was right – Erik didn’t drop Lorna at daycare while he worked. But he did drop Lorna at Edie’s house sometimes so he could concentrate at home or go into the office for a few hours. And Erik was the one who had scoped out the Little Ducklings and left their card on the fridge in case Charles needed help while he was gone.

Charles did not want Erik to think he needed help.

Lorna must have sensed his weakness because she started whining louder. “Don’t leave meeeeeee!” She even managed to well up a few tears for emphasis.

He had thirty-four minutes to get to class.

“All right,” Charles sighed as he put the car in gear. “You can come to school with me, but you have to be a good girl for me and _behave_ , do you understand?”

Already Lorna looked like she’d forgotten the whole thing. She was looking out the window and kicking her little feet again – happily this time – and was singing quietly to herself.

“I said, are you going to be a good girl?”

“Good girl…” Lorna sang from her car seat.

Charles found a parking space at the far corner of UCLA’s faculty lot with only minutes to spare.

“Come on, baby girl! Feetsies to the pavement!” He scooped Lorna out of her car seat and set her on the ground as he swung his computer bag over his shoulder. Just last week he’d made a stink when a couple of students wandered into class fifteen minutes late. Showing up late himself to the very next class would be humiliating, and dilly-dallying in front of a business whose sign featured baby ducks wearing galoshes was not a good excuse in Charles’ book.

Charles held onto Lorna’s hand and together they darted across the parking lot, until Lorna stopped and yelped, “Daddy, I forgot my bunny!” and started running back to the car. Cursing under his breath so she couldn’t hear, Charles grabbed her from behind and swung her over his shoulder, too.

“Six minutes, Lorna! We have six minutes!” he said and carried her back to the car.

“I need my bunny!” she cried from where she hung upside down behind his back.

Lorna’s bunny was also hanging upside down, half falling off the back seat of Charles’ Volvo. He put Lorna down to open the door and let her rescue it, then crouched down beside her. “Do you have everything now?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Are you ready?”

“Ready.”

“Okay, darling. Hang on, because we’ve got to move fast.”

Lorna wrapped her arms around Charles’ neck and her legs tightly around his waist, and together Charles ran as fast as he could across the parking lot, down the path towards the science buildings, through the halls crowded with students, and into the small prep room next to the lecture hall, where he sat Lorna at the table with her bunny and a coloring book he’d stashed in his bag.

“Just stay right here and don’t touch anything, okay?” he kissed the top of her head. “I’ll be right on the other side of that door, I promise.”

Charles didn’t wait for a response before he stepped breathlessly into the lecture hall. He was one minute late. If anyone noticed, they didn’t dare say anything.

“All right. Let’s get started.”

Charles was a tough teacher. That’s not to say that he didn’t have good relationships with his students or that he wasn’t liked. His score on ratemyprofessors.com was more than respectable, and he’d even earned the coveted chili pepper, which meant that at least some of his students thought he was hot. (He knew that already, of course – he was a telepath, after all, and could hear the appreciation for his ass whenever he turned to write on the chalkboard.) But looks aside, most of the comments he received were along the lines of “Nice guy, tough class!” Charles had built a strong enough reputation for himself over the past couple of years that most of the students who signed up for his class were forewarned, and showed up ready to work hard. There wasn’t usually a lot of giggling in Charles’ Intro to Genetics class.

He was about halfway through the lecture, scribbling on the chalkboard, when he started to sense the distraction of his students, and heard a small rumble of amusement. He was about ready to tell everyone to pipe down and focus when Lorna’s little green head caught his eye. She had snuck into the lecture hall and was standing in front of the door with a mischievous little grin on her face. No wonder everyone was distracted.

Charles sighed and looked to his T.A., Kitty. “Could you please read aloud from the start of Chapter Seven? I’ll be right back.”

Trying not to make a scene, Charles took Lorna by the hand and silently led her back into the prep room.

“I have to go to the bathroom!” Lorna whispered loudly.

“All right. I’ll bring you to the bathroom and then after that you’ll stay right here, okay? I promise, it will only be a little while longer.”

Lorna took her time going to the bathroom, of course, and by the time Charles had her settled back in at the table with her bunny and the coloring book, he’d completely forgotten what he’d been talking about in class.

“Thank you, Kitty,” he said as he stepped back into the lecture hall. “Where were we?”

“Mendelian inheritance.”

“Right! Yes. Of course.”

Charles went back to the chalkboard and started drawing Punnett squares. He had just gotten into a good teaching groove, talking about dominant and recessive traits, when the giggling started anew. Sure enough, Lorna was back, this time holding her bunny and wearing an even bigger grin, just like the one Erik wore when he was up to no good.

Charles gave in.

“Everyone, this is my daughter, Lorna. She’s visiting for the day. Lorna, why don’t you come over here and help me teach?”

Lorna looked absolutely gleeful as she ran across the room and jumped into Charles’s arms.

With Lorna propped on his hip, Charles drew another Punnett square on the board. “All right,” he said, “So this square is Lorna. Let’s see if we can figure out what color Lorna’s eyes are. On the top is Lorna’s father, and his eyes are blue.” Charles drew two lowercase b’s for Erik’s eyes – the students didn’t need to know that Charles wasn’t Lorna’s biological father. “And on the left side, Lorna’s mother’s eyes were also blue.” He drew more lowercase b’s representing Lorna’s mother, an anonymous egg donor who very well could have had blue eyes. The students didn’t need to know that, either. “So if blue eyes are recessive, and both parents show the recessive trait, then what color are Lorna’s eyes?”

Lorna shouted, “Blue!”

“That’s right, darling, you have blue eyes.” To the class, Charles said, “Of course it’s massively more complicated than that but she’s heavier than she looks so let’s move this along.” Charles shifted her on his hip and drew another square. “Now let’s see how the X-gene factors into this. Lorna’s father’s hair is brown.” Charles drew a capital B and a lowercase b over the top of the Punnett square. “Lorna’s mother’s hair was blond.” On the left side of the square, Charles wrote BL and bl. “So Lorna, what color is your hair?”

“Green!” Lorna shouted, and the class laughed.

“Yes, very good,” said Charles. “Your hair is green, which does not match the expected inherited traits at all.” He drew an X over the whole thing, then put down the chalk. “Thank you, Lorna, you’ve been a very good assistant.”

The class applauded, which made her clap, too, and Charles allowed himself to laugh a little, in spite of his tough-professor reputation.

Charles set Lorna back down to the ground with a grunt and asked, “Do you want to stay in here or do you want to go back in the other room and draw something for me?”

“I want to stay with you!”

Charles asked the class to wait one minute while he went to grab Lorna’s coloring supplies out of the prep room and set her up in an empty desk at the front corner of the lecture hall.

“Are we ready to move on now?”

The class said nothing, and Lorna seemed happy to sit with the big kids, so Charles went back to work.

It was less than ten minutes before Charles felt a tug at his pantleg and found Lorna looking up at him.

“'Daddy, this is boring!” she said, earning a big laugh from the rest of the class.

Charles sighed and looked at his watch. “All right, I think I’ve lost everyone’s attention for today anyway. Let’s wrap up a little early.”

 

**

 

“Your daughter made her stage debut this morning,” Charles told Erik over Skype that night, and gave Lorna a little tickle. She was very cuddly in her pajamas, sitting in Charles’ lap with a guilty little smile. “We won’t have to worry about shyness from her.”

Erik pretended to be shocked. “What did you do, baby girl?”

“I went to school with Daddy!”

“She ran out in front of my class and told me it was boring!” Charles told him.

Erik laughed, and his smile was as wide as Lorna’s had been when she snuck out of the prep room.

Charles was trying very hard not to laugh along with him. “My students have lost all respect for me, I hope you know.”

“Oh, I’m sure that’s not true,” said Erik.

“It is true, and they’ll never listen to me again.” Charles blew a raspberry into Lorna’s chubby baby cheek and squeezed her until she giggled. “How was your day?” he asked Erik.

“Fine. Productive. Boring. I miss you.”

“I miss you, too,” said Charles.

Erik’s eyes were beginning to droop. It was much later in New York than in California; Charles knew that Erik was staying up well past his bedtime just so he could say goodnight to Lorna.

“Well, I’ll let you go to sleep,” Charles said. “Say goodnight, love. Daddy has to go to bed, and we have a big day tomorrow.”

“What’s your big day tomorrow?” Erik asked.

“Tomorrow Lorna’s going to daycare.”


End file.
